Is she by chance PTing at night or newly night trained? I ask because when my DD was about that age and had night terrors my DH found an article online about a dr. that discovered a link between the two. Something to do with the immature brain not waking them up fully when they had to go.

When DD woke up inconsolable as she was doing every.single.night without fail, we put her on the toilet. She, not being of sound mind and screaming, would not want anything to do with it. She peed every time though and within a minute or two came back around and we were able to cuddle her and put her back to bed.

Obviously this may be a long shot but it worked with DD and later with younger DD when she was going through it.

Good luck. I know it can be scary and very trying. 3 hours is a long time, though. Maybe call the phone nurse at your ped's office just to ask about it.

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Married fifteen years to a great man; SAHMama to four no longer in diapers but DS is still home to me."When you know better, you do better." -Maya Angelou

My dd is 7 and never had a problem until this past summer. When she would come home from a week at her dads she would have night terrors and sleepwalk. We figured out she was way overtired and putting her on the toilet and letting her empty her bladder did help her calm down.

DS had this same problem around the same age. He actually ran full face into a wall during one of the episodes. It is so scary. Unfortunately, what happens is that in your attempt to console your child, your child transfers the effects of the night terror onto you, as if you are the thing causing the fear. DS actually gave DH a black eye once fighting him off. We kept a food journal and tried an elimination diet. We also tracked his sleep and awake times to look for any pattern.

I wish I could tell you a magic solution, but at 5 years old, he still occasionally has them. Just a couple weeks ago, he came downstairs (no recollection of walking down the stairs) screaming and crying that we forgot to put him to bed and how could we forget him, why did we lose him, etc. Just totally gone. DH carried him kicking and screaming upstairs, laid him next to him in bed and suddenly, he was back asleep, then woke up a few minutes later, asked for water, and was done. In December, he had one where he came downstairs (again, no memory of walking downstairs) and kept sobbing that Mariella (DD) was missing and why couldn't he hold her, he needed to hold her, why were we hiding her. I carried him upstairs (got a fat lip when one of his flailing arms connected with my face) and laid next to him with DD. He fell asleep almost instantly. He didn't remember a thing.

As he's gotten older, the terrors are more vivid, but he comes down from them more easily. When he was littler, he could go hours without stopping. It is so frustrating. We have eliminated food dyes, especially red, that one was a major contributor. We lowered his dairy and juice intake. We tried everything. Our insurance wouldn't cover a sleep study unfortunately. And now we've just learned to live with it.

There is a definite theme with his terrors of being lost or losing things, so we try to make him feel very secure during the day. We have a very set night ritual. We finish every night by saying "I love you, I like you, I'll miss you, goodbye goodbye goodbye." We hug and I tell him I promise I'll see him in the morning. Since we've added the night mantra and it's become a permanent fixture of our bedtime routine, his terrors are a little less frequent, but that could also be because he's just aging out of them.

Good luck with your DD. I hope you figure out a solution. I do not recommend trying to restrain her or trying to wake her up. Keep her safe, reassure her from a distance. If she will allow you to hold her, do it in a non-constrictive way so she won't try to fight you. I feel for you momma.

I would talk to a doctor. The fact that she is unresponsive to you could mean she is sleep walking. It could also be a sleep seizure and confusion/disorientation upon waking. (Not trying to scare you.) I've also seen diabetics who act like that. Is she better after nursing/eating/drinking at night? A doctor can get her into do a sleep study to figure out what is going on AND if there is a medical cause.
It might be nothing but the reassurance that it is just a stage/night terrors might help you and your family thought this difficult time. It's worth it to call and get her checked.

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Sahm married to a wonderful man who does the dishes with DS 11/18/02 and DD 7/11/11

Is she by chance PTing at night or newly night trained? I ask because when my DD was about that age and had night terrors my DH found an article online about a dr. that discovered a link between the two. Something to do with the immature brain not waking them up fully when they had to go.

When DD woke up inconsolable as she was doing every.single.night without fail, we put her on the toilet. She, not being of sound mind and screaming, would not want anything to do with it. She peed every time though and within a minute or two came back around and we were able to cuddle her and put her back to bed.

Obviously this may be a long shot but it worked with DD and later with younger DD when she was going through it.

Good luck. I know it can be scary and very trying. 3 hours is a long time, though. Maybe call the phone nurse at your ped's office just to ask about it.

This. ODD had night terrors for years. It was always one hour after she had gone to sleep. We figured out that she just had to pee. If we could catch her right as it started (like hear her rustling around) and put her right on the potty, she would pee and just go back to sleep. Also as a Pp mentioned, rousing them just before it usually happens can reset the sleep cycle and prevent it. DS has had a few but we are super diligent about putting him on the potty at the sametime time each night and either he has grown out of them or the potty trick works. Also if my kids are overtired they are much more likely to have one. Now that DD is almost 10 she doesn't have then but on occasion she will walk and talk in her sleep, it's pretty funny but I can see that a night terror is closely related to sleep walking.

I know they are super scary. DD used to scream for me and say "no no I don't want to." I was convinced there was something awful happening to her when I wasnt around. But it's just the night terror. It seems to me that they are genetic, I had them as a kid (I remember them) and all of my kids have had them. YDD is little but she's had a couple but she's not to the age that my others were when they had them a lot, so we shall see. When you know what to expect they aren't as scary.

We had something VERY similar happen with DD1 when she was 2. My dad convinced me that she was being tormented. I honestly don't know, and we are Christian, and made some changes and prayed a lot. I was a wreck. But we also found that, like another mama who posted, that this all got a lot better when we took her to the bathroom. We started taking her and sitting her on the toilet to pee as soon as she would start stirring (1-2 hours after she went to sleep, usually). This helped SO MUCH. She gradually had fewer problems and now sleeps through the night with no problem (she's 5, but has been doing great for the last year and a half or so). Feel free to PM me if you want!

My oldest had night terrors exactly like your describing. It is awful, it brought me to tears more times than I can count. It was scary to see my baby like that. He was 2. He did outgrow them before turning three and none of my other children have had them (yet), dd is too young.

I found that the less physical intervention the better. Simple connections like 'its okay, Mommys here, Im right here, it's okay...' helped more. Every time I tried picking him up or holding him he would fight me violently. I could always tell wen he came to. And my son never remembered them in the morning.